Fight for primary school places forces some Discovery Bay pupils to head offshore
Those who did not get spot in popular school in upmarket Hong Kong residential district either assigned to one in Peng Chau island, or are looking beyond to Tung Chung or international schools
Most people go island-hopping for their holidays, but this will be a grinding daily routine for six-year-old Edgar as he began his primary school education yesterday on Peng Chau, an island close to the thriving residential community of Discovery Bay where he lives.
“I immediately cried when I knew that my child was assigned to go to school in Peng Chau. I couldn’t imagine how our family could make this arrangement,” Nikki Bouteiller, Edgar’s mother, said as she took him and his friend Renz de Mesa on board an old-school style kaito ferry to attend their first day of school on Thursday morning.
Edgar’s situation highlights the problem of keen competition between parents fighting for places for their children at Discovery Bay’s Sheng Kung Hui (SKH) Wei Lun Primary School. This forced some children who live in the area to travel further to the only other government subsidised primary school in the same school net for primary education – Holy Family School in Peng Chau.
Holy Family School confirmed seven children, including Edgar, who live in Discovery Bay were assigned by the government’s central allocation to attend Primary 1 in the school this year while Bouteiller said she knows altogether nine children who were assigned. The figure has largely grown from just one Discovery Bay student last year being distributed by the system to the Peng Chau school.
Safety on the kaito ferry is another concern, she said. Although the safety jackets on board meet government regulations, they would not be enough, considering the number of children who take the ferry during peak hours.
According to the Census and Statistics Department, the 88,584 children born in 2010 – who would be primary school-going age this year – is the highest in a decade. The live birth numbers in the city continued to rise to 95,451 and 91,558 in 2011 and 2012 respectively. Bouteiller suggested the rise in competition for school places this year is likely a result of the baby boom in those three years which also correspond to the Year of the Tiger, Dragon and Rabbit in the Chinese zodiac – deemed a lucky time to be born.